After 3-Day Absence, Holmes at Jets Camp

Updated Aug. 5, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

ENLARGE

European Pressphoto Agency

New Jets receiver Santonio Holmes practiced for the first time on Wednesday after three days of excused absences. Mr. Holmes's son, Santonio Holmes III, had his spleen removed in Georgia last week due to sickle-cell anemia. Mr. Holmes said that doctors told him the operation was necessary a few years ago, but they couldn't operate until now, when the younger Santonio turned 8 years old. Mr. Holmes said his son can't get on an airplane, which means he won't be able to visit his father at training camp, though he said they have been on webcams together.

—Kevin Clark

Plaxico, Still in Prison, Is on Giants' Radar

Rome, N.Y. is just 100 miles west of the Giants' training facilities in Albany, but General Manager Jerry Reese said he won't be visiting the Oneida Correctional Facility. Not that that means he'll have zero interest when the prison releases its most famous inmate, Plaxico Burress. "We leave all our options open," Mr. Reese said of the possibility the Giants would reach out to the receiver. "Any personnel, any player that's available, we investigate." Mr. Burress still has 13 months remaining on the two-year sentence he was handed after shooting himself in the thigh with an unlicensed handgun in November 2008. He applied for an early work release last month, though, and could be discharged early.

—Aditi Kinkhabwala

Soaked Baseballs Mean Wild Knucklers

ENLARGE

Associated Press

Though he gave up just two runs over six innings in his team's 3-2 win over the Braves, Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey (below) had a difficult time harnessing his knuckleball because of the weather Tuesday night. Intermittent rain on a humid night made the baseballs wet, heavy and slick, and because home-plate umpire John Hirschbeck's bag of baseballs was also soaked, getting a new baseball didn't help Mr. Dickey control his pitches. "Every ball I got was saturated," said Mr. Dickey. "It was straight guerrilla warfare out there."

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